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by Kallonimo



Series: Shakarian Quarantine Project [27]
Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Angst, F/M, no beta we die like jenkins, prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-13
Updated: 2020-06-13
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:02:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24700504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kallonimo/pseuds/Kallonimo
Summary: Three goodbyes.
Relationships: Female Shepard/Garrus Vakarian
Series: Shakarian Quarantine Project [27]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1751218
Comments: 5
Kudos: 35





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**Author's Note:**

> Prompt Category: Angst  
> Prompt: Just go home as soon as possible, okay

Shepard and Garrus say goodbye to each other a total of three times. 

The first time they don’t think much of it, they expect to see each other again soon enough. Garrus is leaving the Normandy to go back to C-Sec, try and become a Spectre. They say it with a handshake and the shyest of smiles, both of them trying not to think of the feelings they have developed. Shepard promises to visit next time she’s on the Citadel and Garrus promises to have a bottle of champagne on hand for when she does. Neither of them know she never will.

Shepard suffocates in space and Garrus, heartbroken and disillusioned, leaves for Omega. They are different people when they meet again. The friendship is still there. The trust, the mutual understanding. But they have both become rougher, colder, less idealistic. It takes some time to rebuild their relationship and then to build on it even further, but they step out of the Collector Base more secure themselves and in their relation to each other than ever before.

They are more careful about the second goodbye. The memory of what happened the first time lingers.

“I could go with you”, Garrus says. 

“No you can’t”, Shepard sighs. It’s not the first time they have had this conversation. “I’m going to be put on trial and I don’t want you or Tali or really anyone where I can avoid it near that.” 

“But-”

“And you can do much more good on Palaven. Make some noise, warn them.”, she gives him a weak smile “It’s time both of us went home, Garrus.” It’s an empty phrase, to her at least. Shepard grew up on spaceships, Earth has never been her home. The closest she has to a home is the Normandy and maybe Garrus himself. 

“I know, I know”, he takes her hands “I’m just worried. Last time...when you dropped me off on the Citadel…”

“I will be okay.”, she kisses him, doing her best to catalogue how it feels, keep him in her memory. “I promise you, I will be okay.”

She turns out to be right. Six months later Shepard is fine, physically at least. She lives in anxiety, wonders if Garrus is still alive. News from Palaven are a rare good these days. But he is there, alive, on Menae and Shepard feels a gigantic weight lifted off her shoulders. 

That night, back on the Normandy, she is listening to his breath as he sleeps and she makes a pact with herself. She will never say goodbye to him again.

And so their last goodbye isn’t a goodbye. 

The last thing Shepard ever says to him is “I love you. I always will.”, she refuses to say goodbye. Even as she is standing in front of the Crucible, knowing she is about to choose death she refuses it. 

She only visualizes his face instead and so the last thing Shepard sees as she becomes something, else, something new, is the one she trusts and loves. Her home.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!


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